The NFL has wrapped its investigation into the Ravens’ handling of Lamar Jackson‘s injury status last week. The team received a $100K fine for violating the league’s policy on injury reporting, ESPN’s Adam Schefter tweets.
Not docking the Ravens any draft picks or moving to suspend anyone, the league determined this violation stemmed from negligence on the team’s part rather than the AFC North club attempting to gain a competitive edge, NFL.com’s Tom Pelissero adds. Had the NFL determined the Ravens were attempting to gain an advantage with their Jackson tactics, Pelissero adds a more significant penalty — including potential loss of picks — would have been levied.
The Ravens fully cooperated with the investigation, one centered around the team incorrectly listing Jackson’s Oct. 24 practice participation. As should be expected, the team will not appeal the fine.
Baltimore had listed Jackson as a full participant at practice Friday. The Ravens had planned a day of scout team reps for the mobile passer and saw him complete the workout with no issues. NFL regulations concerning injury reporting don’t allow this, though. If injury causes a player who would normally receive starting reps to practice with the scout team, they have to be listed as a limited participant at practice.
John Harbaugh labeled this an honest mistake, and the NFL investigation validated the longtime Ravens HC’s view of the matter. After notice from the league, Baltimore was forced to retroactively change Jackson’s practice participation, and the team announced Saturday that he would not play in Week 8’s game.
Entering their Bears matchup 1-5, the Ravens were able to win with Tyler Huntley starting in place of Jackson, whose practice report now lists three limited practices last week. That type of runup usually leads to a player suiting up for that week’s game — and a full workout Friday pointed to Jackson playing — but the Ravens ended up resting their QB ahead of their Thursday-night game in Miami. The NFL not ruling this a deliberate attempt to muddy the waters for the Bears will surely not go over well in Chicago, but Baltimore — which annually prioritizes compensatory picks — not being docked any late-round draft choices will bring a sigh of relief for that franchise.
This is not the first time a murky Jackson status has interfered with Ravens plans. The team had expected the superstar quarterback to return before the 2022 season ended, but he did not reappear that season after suffering a PCL sprain in Week 13. At that point, Jackson was unsigned for 2023. That added a wrinkle to the QB’s recovery saga. Now on a $52MM-per-year contract, Jackson has the Ravens back in the thick of an underhelming AFC North race. He threw four touchdown passes in Baltimore’s rout of Miami — a game that preceded the Dolphins separating from longtime GM Chris Grier — on Thursday.
Bull! It most definitely was a attempt to confuse the opposition
Believe me when I tell ya that the Bears are more than capable of confusing themselves…they don’t require any outside help 🙂
Don’t ever trust a Harbaugh!
Well, if Goodell objects to teams attempting to gain a competitive advantage over their opponents… shouldn’t he be trying to ban team practices altogether?
Its all about online betting……100,000 bag of shells
Wink, wink, nod nod. Someone in the league office just got a big enough “bonus’ to buy a new Porsche (maybe even a Rolls).
Hopefully there’s enough left from that bonus to get Goodell training wheels for the bike he was riding at last springs draft 🙂
This post is brought to you by FanDuel where our motto is ‘don’t $%#& with the betting lines’.
Well the sportsbooks deal with betting line movements constantly so it’s no real concern to them. In cases where one side is getting a percentage of action that starts to feel uncomfortable, they simply adjust their vig to swing wagering action in the other direction.
Um not exactly. There are contests in Vegas where the lines are made based off the injury reports. The Friday injury reports are the most important, as that’s what most indicative as whether a player will play or not. Listing Lamar as a full participant on Friday means he will likely play. The line dropped from Baltimore -6.5 to -1.5 based on the fact it came out Lamar wouldn’t play. Huge difference. Especially when the NFL owns a piece of the handicapping action. That is a massive conflict of interest and a total mess for the NFL, who used to be so opposed to gambling.
I do agree it’s a protection of the NFL’s relationship with sportsbook sponsorship money, if it wasn’t a MVP QB probably not as big of deal to any party involved.
And while Jackson playing or not playing in this matchup can move a NFL total 5 points, which is a massive movement, in general sportsbooks have public bias built into their modeling for certain games, and most definitely try to influence action away from the sharp side of a bet if the public bias factor crosses a threshold of statistical significance. This is why certain lines on certain games never move, because the public bias is so great that bad money never stops pouring in on the sucker side.
What Lemon is saying about line adjustments based on money coming in is traditionally true, especially for a random 10pm eastern untelevised Mountain West conference game… however, most books will monitor accounts that are flagged as sharp, and their lines or vig are adjusted and influenced by the action from these accounts much more than the total accounting of the handle being brought in.
Monday Nights and Thanksgiving games have such massive pools of money being bet that it’s unlikely a random person placing a six figure bet for either side will move the lines, but if a known sports betting winner picks a side for 15k ten minutes before kickoff, you can see the juice increase 10-20% or a line jump up to a full point the opposite direction, even when the total pool of money being bet is at its near peak.
There’s a guy called right angle. You should see how the lines move within minutes of him releasing his plays. Amazing. Or Billy Walters had a bunch of guys placing wagers on the same teams at different books so they wouldn’t know it was him.
But NFL teams can’t hide injury status. Kirk Cousins played hurt last year and wasn’t on the injury report. Carson Wentz wasn’t listed with a shoulder injury last week either, when it was clear his left shoulder was in bad shape.
@Plus3
Injuries are going to influence the betting line but 75% of the online wagering with the sportsbooks occurs within an hour of the game starting so most betters were aware Lamar would be a no go.
@Lemon, Cousins wasn’t even listed on the injury report late last year. Now it comes out he was hurt. Would’ve been nice to know he was banged up which may be why he played so bad. Wentz wasn’t listed either last week, even though he was playing with a robotic left shoulder. That’s unacceptable.
Most betting fans over estimate the impact an injury will have. The good HCs (the guys that have survived a decade or more) generally find ways to minimize the impact.
P.S. I can’t honestly say I would have much sympathy for anyone who would bet on Wentz anyway…lol.
Depends on the injuries. Look at MINN OL. They can’t run the ball or protect an immobile QB. You saw what the Chargers did to them, who, btw, had Alt back. Brissette is likely starting for AZ Monday. Not much of a drop off there, which speaks volumes about Murray. Hendrrickson is supposedly out for Cincy tomorrow. Big difference in the D. Roquan Smith or Kyle Hamilton for BALT are impact players. Last week Wentz was designated as a full participant in practice with no injury. That clearly was wrong and the NFL needs to clean that up.
Always puzzled me why teams should be privy to each other’s medical information?
Should be bigger. Harbaugh’s excuse was lame. A Million would be better but that won’t happen. The NFL and Gambling go hand in hand.
I don’t exactly understand the difference between this and a player like Juwan Jennings being like oh I’ve been playing with broken ribs secretly this whole time. How come that doesn’t need to be disclosed? I’m not complaining I’m genuinely curious
You gamble. You lose. Who cares.
Anything to f♡<& with gamblers is OK in my book.
NFL takes its gambling connections every seriously